Jonathan Ferguson
One of the most persistent firearm myths is that American soldiers fighting in the Second World War (or later, in the Korean War) were at substantial risk of being identified and engaged by the enemy because of the distinctive ‘ping’ sound made by ejection of clips from their issued rifles. The M1 ‘Garand’ was ahead of its time as a military self-loading rifle, but unlike modern rifles it did not feature detachable box magazines. Instead it was loaded with eight round metal en bloc clips. These were inserted into the open action from the top and retained inside the weapon until the last round was fired, at which point the clip would eject (along with the final fired cartridge case) with a distinctive ‘ping’ sound (you can clearly hear this in the movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’, for example, and see it in slow motion in this Forgotten Weapons video). The notion of this ‘ping’ being a fatal flaw is a myth, in that there’s no evidence that it endangered infantrymen. However, there’s a bit more to it than that…
Reloading Data For M1 Garand
A lot of ink and pixels have been expended arguing the ‘M1 ping’ myth back and forth, and some have even tried to practically demonstrate why it’s a silly idea. Tactical trainer Larry Vickers recreated a scenario for his ‘TAC TV’ series, and more recently YouTuber ‘Bloke on the Range’ has tackled the myth. The Bloke shows just how difficult it would be to even hear the ‘ping’, without the various other loud noises associated with battle. Soldiers have only recently begun to wear any kind of hearing protection at all, which would have made such a noise even more difficult to detect. Not to mention the obvious fact that soldiers rarely fight alone. Even if a German or Japanese soldier did manage to take advantage of the ‘ping’ window of opportunity, he’s likely to get shot by another GI. More importantly, the Bloke shows how easy and quickly one could reload following the ‘ping’. At all but the closest ranges, this really is a myth and a total non-issue. As Bloke points out, there is no actual historical evidence for this ever having happened, and for every claim that a veteran experienced it, there is an ‘equal and opposite veteran’ making a claim to the contrary. This is typified by an exchange in ‘American Rifleman’ magazine in 2011/12 (reproduced here). It’s almost impossible to find a first-hand account either; it’s always a relative, a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend, and being told and retold decades after the fact. At this point, one would normally call ‘case closed’ as Garand expert Bruce N. Canfield has done online, in no uncertain terms.
M1 Garand Clips 8 Round Enbloc USGI New Surplus SLED 2rd 5rd 1rd Clip 1 2 5 Round S.L.E.D. Accessories National Match NM Collector Clips Coded WRA BRW SA B-W IS WEP BLM AMP C fe NW S O 1911 45 Mag 7rd. M1 Garand Clips 8rd Enbloc and specialty SLED, 2rd National Match & 5rd Hunting Clips. We offer USGI Coded M1 Garand Clips and top quality MIL SPEC US made Clips. Our NEW US Made MILSPEC Clips are produced by Aggressive Engineering, 'AEC 3' coded on base. Aggressive was the last Government Contractor to make clips for the US Army (Coded 'AGE. Dec 29, 2019 The m1 bullet was 172-3 and was replaced by the m2 150 gr bullet for weight savings on the soldier and shipping however the m1 was still retained for belted machine guns and sniper use as it did in fact fly farther for the machine guns and shoot better for snipers. Nm 06 Ammo was always loaded with 172/3 grain bullets and is fine for the garand. M1 Garand enbloc clip loader. Thread starter sd624; Start date Aug 31, 2013; 1; 2; Next. 1 of 2 Go to page. Sd624 Active User. IMHO though, that's a pretty powerful charge to use for a 150gr bullet using IMR4064. I use 48.2 grains of IMR4064 for a 150 grain bullet and that's for my bolt action Rem700. I would be afraid of over pressure for an M1 Garand using 50.0 grains of IMR4064 with a 150 grain bullet.
However, this situation is more complicated than just the bare facts. Sometimes, myths intrude into reality by being thoroughly embedded in thought and practice. There is no doubt whatever that whether this ever happened or not, quite a lot of soldiers in the ‘40s and ‘50s clearly did believe that this quirk of their rifle posed a real threat. This is proven by a fascinating document uploaded by the Garand Collector’s Association. 1952 Technical Memorandum (ORO-T-18 (FEC)), entitled ‘Use of Infantry Weapons and Equipment in Korea’, was written by G.N. Donovan of ‘Project Doughboy’. This was an effort by the Operations Research Office of the John Hopkins University to gather feedback on the practical usage of US military weapons in the then-current Korean War.
On page five we read the conclusion that:
“The noise caused by ejection of the empty clip from the M1, despite the fact that at close range it could be heard by the enemy, was considered valuable by the rifleman as a signal to reload.”
And on page eighteen:
“One other complaint about the M1 was the noise made by the safety. Half the men had a nagging fear that some day the noise made in releasing the safety would reveal their positions to the enemy, yet only one-fourth objected to the distinctive noise the empty clip made when ejected. They were quite willing to retain the noise of the clip even though the enemy might be able to use it to advantage, because they found it a very useful signal to reload.”
However, the question that prompted this response was rather a leading one (p. 51):
“Interviews Conducted on Noise of the Rifle
M1 Garand Clip Belt
- Is the sound of the clip being ejected of possible help to the enemy or is it helpful to you as an indication of when to reload, or is it of no importance?
[Answers are followed by the number of men responding in the affirmative]
Helpful to the enemy – 85
Helpful to know when to reload, therefore retain – 187
Of no importance – 43
[Total responders – ] 315”
But the answers speak for themselves. Of those soldiers surveyed, twice as many believed that the noise was helpful to the enemy, as thought it unimportant. Many more men thought it was actually a useful audible indication of an empty weapon, bearing out the Bloke’s results that yes, you can hear the ping if you’re close enough, but no, you probably can’t successfully rush a man before he can get another clip into his rifle.
M1 Garand Reload Mid Clips
In defence of their findings, the researchers commented thusly:
“Results of these interviews show that there is great uniformity in responses to questions asked, and all numerical estimates of such items as range of firing, load carried, etcetera, have been found to cluster around a central point with comparatively little scattering. Thus it is felt that the results are reliable and can be fairly said to represent what the infantryman believed he did. The fact that these were group interviews further increased the reliability of the results, since any apparent exaggeration by one man was quickly picked up and questioned by others. In this way the men themselves provided a check on the accuracy of their answers.”
In other words, if other soldiers thought it impossible for the enemy to take advantage of the ‘ping’, they would have said so. This is probably true, although interviewees are likely to behave differently under observation and questioning, and so some doubt must remain. There was also no recommendation made with respect to this perceived ‘flaw’ with the weapon, and no comment from officers on the issue (interestingly, they did point out that the noisy safety could be carefully operated not to make noise). However, again, the numbers here speak for themselves, along with the later anecdotal evidence. Some soldiers really did believe that it was possible for the enemy to hear the ‘ping’ of your rifle, rush your position, and kill you. And, whilst unlikely, there’s no reason to believe that such a thing is impossible. For example, in an incident that occurred in Afghanistan in 2008, a skirmish between a British patrol and a small number of Taliban came down to just such a one-on-one situation, with a British officer and Taliban fighter positioned just feet from each other with only a river bank in the way. Realising his weapon was empty, the attacking officer opted to use his bayonet (and the element of surprise) rather than take time to reload, and killed the wounded enemy.
If we imagine a similar engagement where one party is armed with a Garand, it may well be possible to hear the final shot and the clip go ‘ping’, close the distance, and kill the unfortunate combatant. There are many other scenarios in which this could happen, but all would involve a lull in firing, being isolated from one’s squadmates (or at least in their firing line, preventing them from shooting past you), running out of ammunition at just the wrong moment, and a certain amount of bravery and/or luck on the part of the defender. It may have happened, it may never have happened; on that question the balance of the evidence suggests that it did not. However, and this is an important caveat, it is important not to insist that this claim is a total myth as Canfield has done, stating that it is ‘…so silly as to not be worthy of serious discussion’. The implication is that no-one with any knowledge of the subject would make this claim, but we now know that many veteran combatants who fought with this rifle, in fact, believe it. They simply believed that the minor risk posed by the noise was outweighed by the benefit of an audible cue to reload the weapon.
Remember, all arms and munitions are dangerous. Treat all firearms as if they are loaded, and all munitions as if they are live, until you have personally confirmed otherwise. If you do not have specialist knowledge, never assume that arms or munitions are safe to handle until they have been inspected by a subject matter specialist. You should not approach, handle, move, operate, or modify arms and munitions unless explicitly trained to do so. If you encounter any unexploded ordnance (UXO) or explosive remnants of war (ERW), always remember the ‘ARMS’ acronym:
AVOID the area
RECORD all relevant information
MARK the area from a safe distance to warn others
SEEK assistance from the relevant authorities
RECORD all relevant information
MARK the area from a safe distance to warn others
SEEK assistance from the relevant authorities
M1 Garands weighed at least 10 pounds with a sling and an eight-round clip.
Jean Cantius Garand was born to a Quebec farming family in 1888. Like many Quebecers, the Garands spoke French, and even after the family emigrated to Connecticut in 1899 and Jean started speaking English, a French accent remained for the rest of his life.
One standard piece of .30-06 handloading advice, especially for Garands, is that military cases are heavier than commercial cases, so loads need to be reduced. In this instance, however, commercial Federal cases used for the handloads averaged 7 grains heavier than G.I. brass.
His first name was anglicized to John, and he learned to machine while working at a textile mill and eventually began working for toolmaking companies. An avid shooter, Garand’s machining skills allowed him to start developing firearms, and late in World War I the U.S. military selected his design for a light machine gun. Though the machine gun did not go into production until after the war, in 1919 it landed him a job at Springfield Armory, and the next year he became an American citizen.Among Garand’s assignments was the development of a semiautomatic infantry rifle, and the resulting M1 was finally approved in 1936. Known informally as “the Garand,” the rifle was one of several American technological developments that definitely played a role in defeating the Axis powers. General George Patton famously called it “The greatest battle implement ever devised.”
Apparently, however, those who call the rifle “the Garand” usually mispronounce the name, saying “guh-ROND.” According to people who knew him, including General Julius Hatcher, Garand’s name actually rhymed with “errand,” with the accent on the first syllable. (However, Garand’s son John reportedly pronounced
The gas-port plug underneath the muzzle can be replaced with an after-market model to shoot commercial .30-06 ammunition.
the name incorrectly, perhaps to make life easier.The M1 Garand remained in service until 1959, and friend Tom Booker (a rifle loony of the first order) recently purchased one made at Springfield Armory in 1957. Tom is a retired engineer who is always busy with several personal engineering projects, including an elk-retrieval system for his pickup’s trailer hitch, so he was not adverse to loaning me his Garand to work up some handloads.
Along with the rifle, he provided a bag of Winchester 150-grain Power-Point bullets he had purchased off an Internet site for hunting handloads, and some 150-grain MK 4z military ammunition loaded by the U.S. military for British Commonwealth countries that continued to use the .30-06 long after the Lend-Lease program of World War II. (The “z” denotes the use of U.S. powder rather than British Cordite.)
During the M1’s initial development it was chambered in .276 Pedersen, a smaller, lower-pressure round with a .284-inch diameter bullet designed for use in semiautomatic rifles and light machine guns. In 1932 General Douglas MacArthur quashed the .276 because zillions of .30-06 service rounds already existed.
Experimentation resulted in handloads that were more than accurate enough for big-game hunting. This group was fired at 100 yards after working up the load at 50 yards.
However, because of the M1’s mechanics, .30-06 pressures need to be moderate. The action cycles via an “operating rod” actuated by a gas port in the barrel just behind the muzzle, which unlocks and pushes back the bolt. If port pressure is too low, the action does not cycle, and if it’s too high the operating rod can bend, disabling the rifle. New “op-rods” can be purchased, but it’s easier – and far cheaper – not to bend them in the first place.)Overall, the loads with Berger 168-grain VLDs were more consistently accurate than 150-grain loads. Loads with Varget, Reloder 15 and Vihtavuori N140 resulted in excellent accuracy.
Military ammunition for the Garand was loaded with bullets in the 150- to 172-grain range at mild .308 Winchester velocities, and most commercial .30-06 ammunition is too warm for safe M1 pressures. There are three ways to solve the problem: Shoot military ammunition, handload appropriate ammunition or install a gas-port plug with a smaller aperture, reducing pressure on the operating rod. At least a couple of companies offer replacement Garand gas plugs, one adjustable.However, Tom is a confirmed handloader, so I started by doing considerable research on handloading for M1s, including the specific Garand sections in the Hornady and Sierra loading manuals. The basic rule is to use powders in the same general burn-rate range of IMR-4895, nothing much faster burning or, especially, much slower.
Over the years I had heard IMR-4895 was specifically developed by DuPont for the M1 rifle, but I also heard the M1 was designed around IMR-4895. This led to more research, and it turns out the M1 and IMR-4895 coevolved during the years leading up to World War II.
The original 1906 service load used a 150-grain flatbase spitzer at 2,700 fps – the same ammunition Theodore Roosevelt used
Varget proved to be the most accurate powder with Winchester 150-grain Power- Points provided by Tom Booker, the rifle’s owner.
to great effect in his “little Springfield” during his year-long safari in 1909-10. The load was upgraded in the 1920s with a heavier boat-tail bullet at around 2,650 fps using DuPont IMR-1185. This M1 Ball ammunition was designed for long-range machine-gun barrages, then a common military tactic, but by the time the Garand rifle appeared, the .50 BMG had taken over the long-range role, and .30-06 machine guns were primarily used at closer range.Various sources claim the M1 bullet weighed 172, 173 and 174 grains, a mystery explained by a list of .30-06 service loads in Hatcher’s Notebook, the reference work by General Julian Hatcher. The maximum bullet weight of M1 ammunition was a maximum of 174.5 grains but could be as much as 3 grains lighter. Similarly, the maximum weight of the “150-grain” bullet was 152 grains but could be as light as 149 grains.
For the Garand, the army decided to reproduce the original 150-grain ballistics, partly because it recoiled less and partly because the ammunition was somewhat lighter. The “basic load” carried by an infantryman was 88 rounds – an eight-round clip in the rifle, and 80 more in a bandolier. With IMR-4895, muzzle velocity was eventually raised to 2,800 fps.
However, unlike several other DuPont IMR powders developed during the 1930s, IMR-4895 was not available to handloaders until the late 1940s, when Bruce Hodgdon bought railroad cars full of war surplus IMR-4895 and sold it as H-4895. IMR-4895 available today is made in Canada and, while not exactly the original formula, is pretty close. Today’s H-4895 is a different powder, one of the Australian-made Extreme line offered by Hodgdon.
Due to its adaptation to the Garand, IMR-4895 was designed to burn most efficiently at around 50,000 psi, rather than the 60,000+ psi of many modern rifle powders, including the 20mm cannon powder Hodgdon sold as H-4831. I have long suspected the reason so many post-World War II gun writers stated accurate loads were usually found a few grains below listed maximum was the abundance of military surplus 4895. The powder was so versatile and affordable many handloaders used it for all their rifle loads. Consequently, many handloaders did find the finest accuracy with lower-than-maximum charges while many of today’s powders shoot best when loaded right up there.
The Garand was surprisingly easy to shoot on the bench because of its 10-pound weight, gas operation and the modest ballistics of appropriate ammunition.
During research I started a list of other potential Garand powders, eventually ending up with seven candidates: IMR-4895, H-4895, Accurate 2495 (essentially its version of 4895), IMR-4064, Hodgdon Varget (another Extreme powder that is slightly slower than H-4895), Alliant Reloder 15 and Vihtavuori N150.I also decided to limit handloads to two bullets weighing 150 and 168 grains, approximating the bullet weights used during the development of the Garand. Not many bullet makers offer 172-grain .30-caliber bullets anymore, and while some published data includes heavier bullets, many Garand shooters advise against using anything heavier than 172 grains due to possible op-rod damage.
The brass used was new Federal, already primed with Federal 210s, purchased in a really good Internet deal a couple years ago. They seemed like a good choice partly because of their weight. Another standard piece of Garand handloading advice, and indeed for the .30-06 in general, is reducing powder charges a little in military brass because G.I. cases are usually significantly heavier than commercial cases. As a result, the same loads in military brass create more pressure, a real no-no in the Garand.
M1 Garand Reload Mid Clip Art
I had encountered this before with G.I. brass, and not just .30-06 but 7.62x51 NATO cases used in .308 and .358 Winchester rifles, but in this instance the Federal brass turned out to be heavier than Tom Booker’s 200-grain military cases, averaging 207 grains. Since the Federal brass also eliminated dealing with crimped-in military primers, I used it for all the handloads.
The first range test, however, was made with 1969 military ammunition, both to check point of impact with the M1’s sights and obtain some idea of accuracy and velocity. The only previous time I had fired a Garand was decades ago, when a friend brought one along for an informal plinking session. His rifle hit some empty cans at short range, and I mostly remember the recoil being pretty mild for a .30-06, no doubt due to both the Garand’s weight and gas operation.
I’ve used plenty of two-stage military triggers over the years, and the pull on Tom’s rifle was decent, the second stage averaging a pretty crisp 5.5 pounds. This may sound heavy to shooters used to modern bolt-action trigger pulls of 3 pounds or less, but is very controllable on a rifle weighing almost exactly 10 pounds with an eight-round ammunition clip.
I set up a target at 50 yards, partly because all the range sessions took place during a particularly windy Montana spring, and
wind drift at 50 yards was only a quarter as much at 100. But I also wanted to accustom my 60-something-year-old eyes to the sights and have found shooting at 50 yards puts less strain on them. Despite this age handicap, I still shoot irons pretty well, partly due to using them regularly. Some older shooters have trouble with iron sights when they try them again after decades of scope use, because they have forgotten the basic principles. But that is another story.After getting used to the trigger and sights, three-shot groups with the military surplus ammunition averaged 1.39 inches, the equivalent of a little under 3 inches at 100 yards – not bad for 50-year-old machine-gun ammunition and rugged sights not specifically designed for target work. Average muzzle velocity was just about 2,750 fps, a little less than 2,800 fps listed by Hatcher but certainly within the normal variation for both rifles and ammunition.
The rifle itself functioned perfectly – except for the very first round, a misfire. After waiting the standard two minutes with the rifle pointed downrange, I manually ejected the cartridge then pocketed it for break-down back in my loading room. It turned out to contain 53.2 grains of a powder that, not surprisingly, looked exactly like my supply of twenty-first-century IMR-4895. The bullet weighed 151.0 grains, within the specifications listed in Hatcher’s Notebook.
After three range sessions with handloads, Varget provided the finest accuracy with 150-grain bullets, and VV-N150 provided the best groups with 168s. Friend Kevin Thomas got wind of the VV-N150 news and sent an e-mail saying we needed to discuss VV-N150 in the Garand. Kevin has been in the shooting business a long time – we met more than a decade ago, when he was chief ballistician at Sierra Bullets – and these days he is in charge of technical services at Capstone, the U.S. importer of Vihtavuori powders.
Kevin contacted me because he’s a Garand shooter. While Vihtavuori’s loading data for VV-N150 makes it appear the powder is similar in burn rate to IMR-4895, Kevin said it is not: “We just completed some comparative testing with VV-N150 against 4350, and found them to be very, very close in terms of both performance and pressure curves. Close enough that I would be remiss in not pointing this out to anyone thinking of using the VV-N150 in a Garand. It’s just too slow to be comfortably recommended in a Garand with a good conscience. Op rods are not getting any cheaper these days.”
Instead he recommended either VV-N135 or VV-N140, and since he had recently sent me a batch of the latest Vihtavuori rifle powders – all temperature-resistant, with a decoppering agent – I decided to cease and desist with VV-N150 and switch to VV-N140. Luckily, I had only fired a few rounds, which had not damaged Tom’s rifle.
This brings up another point: The classic advice of using only powders in the IMR-4895 burn-rate range does not take into consideration changes in powders since the 1930s. Just because loading data for a certain powder makes it appear similar to IMR-4895, many newer powders burn more progressively, maintaining higher pressure farther down the bore – even all the way to the gas port on an M1 Garand.
M1 Garand Clips Bulk
The handloads were worked up not only with just accuracy in mind, but also a certain velocity range to avoid overloading the operating rod. All the 150-grain loads ended up between about 2,650 and 2,750 fps, and the 168-grain loads ranged from 2,500 to 2,600 fps. Both the 4895s and Accurate 2495 resulted in okay, but not great, accuracy – and the 150-grain bullets did not work well with Alliant Reloder 15, though in many other rifles I have seen excellent results with all four powders. IMR-4064 worked pretty well, but the definite overall best powder with 150s was Varget.
With Berger 168-grain VLDs, VV-N140 won by a nose with RL-15 and Varget right behind. Results with the 168-grain bullets were more consistent overall, probably because of the quality of the Berger bullets.
After repeatedly testing all the handloads at 50 yards, I shot the most accurate loads with both bullets at 100 yards, confirming the results. This particular M1 Garand indicates some newer powders have the potential to improve the performance of the old battle rifle.